


Shotgone

by Addleton



Series: Promptings [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: M/M, RvB Angst War, sargington
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-24 17:00:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7516060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Addleton/pseuds/Addleton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>PrettyArbitrary prompted “Angsty Sargington. [Sarge] has to sacrifice his shotgun to save someone.”</p><p>Written for the 3rd RvB Angst War.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shotgone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PrettyArbitrary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyArbitrary/gifts), [immortalbears](https://archiveofourown.org/users/immortalbears/gifts).



The blast blows the Warthog sky-high, throwing Sarge and the other occupants every-which-direction before the vehicle plunges down past the edge of the ravine, Sarge and the driver falling after.

Sarge snags the screaming driver, a New Republic kid still clinging to the detached steering column, and reaches out towards the rock face. A moment later, the red sergeant grunts as he snags hold of an outcropping and absorbs most of the impact of two armored bodies slamming into the cliffside. His badly-wrenched shoulder rages at the abuse, but what is more concerning is that his trusty shotgun has been knocked loose from its mag strip and is now swaying with every movement he or the driver makes.

“Get a grip there, kid.”

“I'm trying, sir, I'm trying, but we almost died, ohmygod _wealmostdied_.”

“And we're gonna die if you don't get a grip on this cliff. My shoulder’s about to give out.”

The young soldier practically lunges for the cliff, scrabbling at the rock for a hold. “I'm sorry!” she wails, entire body shaking with sobs.

Sarge grabs onto the cliff with his newly-freed arm, finding that, as soon as he takes some weight off it, his other shoulder isn't just badly wrenched—it’s dislocated. He'll have to climb up one-handed. He huffs at the kid's stammering apologies and barks back, “Then start climbing! You're doing no one any good hanging around down here!”

“I’m sorry!” the kid sobs, but she dutifully begins scaling the stone, her sniffles subsiding a bit more with each foothold and handhold gained.

Sarge begins following shortly after, his slower, one-handed climb made all the more arduous by the precarious positioning of his primary firearm. In hindsight, he should have had the kid reposition his shotgun before she left.

The driver reaches the top and heaves herself over the edge after a quick peek to check if the coast is clear. Her head appears back over the edge a moment later as she checks upon Sarge’s slow progress. “Are you okay, sir?”

“Just peachy! Only dislocated my shoulder and almost lost my shotgun. Just keep watch up there while I work my way up.”

“I could find a rope or cable... or something?”

Sarge snorts; the last thing his shotgun needs is the jostling that came from swinging on the end of a cable. “Don’t bother. I’m almost there.”

“Okay, sir, but please hurry. I don’t have any cover...”

“Just keep your head low and you’ll be fine.”

The kid ducks back from the edge.

As he carefully nears the top, Sarge can hear Wash shouting orders and giving those pirates a heaping helping of bullets. It makes Sarge itch, being so far away from the action, and he can hardly wait until he’s atop the cliff and able to help with the lead-dispensing and enemy-slaying.

He pushes the itch away and keeps steadily climbing, ever mindful of the shotgun teetering on the edge of the mag strip. As his fingers finally grip the top of the cliff, Sarge hisses at the kid, “You still there?”

The driver peeks over the edge before scrambling into a squat to help pull the colonel up the final stretch.

“Slowly! Watch the shotgun!”

“But sir—”

“No buts about it! I’ll have you know that this shotgun is worth more than your life!”

The kid hauls him up as gently as can be, shotgun and all, and Sarge can just about get his knee over the edge when a bullet catches the driver through the back of her neck. She flinches and loses her grip on Sarge’s hand before toppling backwards, clutching her ruined throat.

Sarge slips and drops like a brick, catching himself with his good arm and cursing as the jolt sends his beloved firearm spiralling off into the ragged ravine below. The Red leader curses harder as he hauls himself up single-handedly and with relative ease now that he has no precious armament to preserve, only to find the driver unmoving where she fell. Sarge drags the kid into the first cover he sees, stabilizing her as best he can; she’d need actual medical attention to survive though, and soon.

“Stay here, kiddo.”

The kid chokes and wheezes pathetically, gripping at Sarge’s arm when he pulls out his secondary weapon.

“Can’t. You need a medic, and I’ve got to help the others fight off this ambush. You’ll be fine. You survived falling off a cliff, kid! You can survive a bitty bullet to the throat.”

She whimpers and clings tighter.

“Hang in there, kiddo. This’ll be over soon.” He pats the kid’s shoulder reassuringly before slipping out of her hold to find the closest medic. A moment, one medic, and a partial armor lock later, Sarge charges off in the direction of Wash’s shouting, eager to rain righteous vengeance upon the ones responsible for separating him from his beloved weapon.

* * *

By the time they finish driving off those pesky pirates, half the patrol is down, the other half barely standing, everyone bearing a spectrum of injuries running the gamut from bruising to _how-are-you-still-standing?!_ Wash is in the latter category, functioning purely on what Sarge knows to be sheer stubbornness before the gray-armored badass is forced to take a seat in a jeep promptly designated for priority cases. Miraculously, no one has died, and as everyone limps back to Armonia in the remaining vehicles, Sarge makes sure the kid rides in the same car as Wash.

When Wash asks, Sarge just shrugs and tells him that the kid got shot while pulling him up the cliff.

* * *

The day after the ambush at the ravine, Sarge returns to his quarters to find a furious former Freelancer seething on the bottom bunk. The Blue Team leader is completely out of armor, the outlines of bandages visible through the thin fabric of his shirt.

Sarge takes his helmet off and ambles over to his armor locker, the door to the room shutting behind him. “Shouldn’t you be resting?” he asks as he opens the locker door and places his helmet on its shelf.

Wash snorts. “I can rest when I’m dead. We need to talk.”

“What about?” Sarge asks without looking up from where he’s stripping off his boots and greaves.

“I had a talk with Private Younge.”

Sarge glances up at Wash. “Who?”

Wash stiffens and looks at Sarge incredulously. “The driver of the Warthog that went over the cliff.”

“Oh, the kid!” Sarge grins crookedly as Wash relaxes slightly. “Never did catch her name. How’s she doing?”

“Doctor Grey says she’ll make a full recovery.”

“Of course she will! She’s a tough kid.”

“She told me something interesting. Said that you took a long time climbing back up the cliff.”

Sarge looks over as he stows the last of his lower body armor in the locker. Wash is watching him with a strange intensity. “What’s so interesting about that?” Sarge asks as he begins removing his gauntlets.

Wash crosses his arms over his chest, eyes narrowing as he replies, “It’s unusual. Normally, nothing gets in between you and fight for long.”

“Yes, well—” Sarge catches himself glancing at the empty space his shotgun normally occupied next to the locker. “—there were some extenuating circumstances involved this time.”

“Really? What sort of ‘extenuating circumstances’?”

“Well,” Sarge begins, working off the last of the armor on his good arm, “it all began when I dislocated my shoulder catching the both of us from falling to our deathly demises.” Sarge gestures at his other arm, hanging loosely at his side. He fishes a sling out of the locker and places his arm in it with a barely-concealed wince. “And as if climbing up single-handed wasn’t handicap enough, my shotgun got knocked loose from the force of the impact!”

“So your shotgun got in the way of your climbing.”

Sarge grunts, catching himself looking at the empty space once more. “You could say that.”

“Then why didn’t you drop it?”

Sarge whips his head around to stare at Wash in utter disbelief. “You don’t just _drop_ your primary firearm! What in tarnation makes you think I’d do something as harebrained as that!?”

“In other words, you’re telling me that you took your sweet time climbing the cliff, deliberately endangering the life of one of your soldiers, _just to keep your shotgun?!_ ”

Sarge draws back, shocked at the vitriol in Wash’s tone. “No.”

“Then what _were_ you doing? Please do tell.” the Blue leader grinds out between clenched teeth, his carefully-impassive expression betrayed by the fire in his eyes and the tenseness of his jaw.

“I wasn’t _deliberately endangering_ anyone for starters!” Sarge puts the last of his armor in the locker and shuts the door with a bit more force than necessary. “I didn’t order the kid to stay or to help me. She did that all on her own. I even told her to keep her head down while I climbed up myself.”

“And what about telling her that the shotgun was worth more than her life?”

Sarge thinks back to that moment at the cliff. Remembers saying something like that. Takes one look at the rage practically bleeding out of Wash’s eyes and has second thoughts about arguing the point. “I didn’t mean it literally,” Sarge grumbles, looking back at the empty spot next to the locker. “And clearly it was an exaggeration since she’s fine and my shotgun isn’t! I was simply trying to impress upon her the importance of my primary firearm.”

“Why?” Wash’s tone is flat, no trace in it of the fond camaraderie Sarge has grown used to hearing.

Sarge shuffles in place and mumbles, “I wanted to keep my shotgun,” feeling all the while that it’s the wrong answer, even if it is the truth.

“Alright. You just wanted to keep your shotgun.” There is an edge to Wash’s voice that Sarge can’t quite identify. He thinks it might be mockery, but realizes that it’s _contempt_ when Wash tenses up and growls out, “Even though doing so kept you from helping the rest of us fight off the ambush.”

Sarge fiddles with his sling. “I knew you’d be able to hold out until I got up there.”

Wash heaves a breath like he’d been punched in the gut. “You couldn’t have known that for sure.”

“Of course I could!” Sarge looks up to meet Wash’s eyes, bold confidence returning in a rush. “Nobody, much less a gaggle of no-good dirtbag pirate scum, stands a chance against Agent Washington when he focuses his freaky Freelancer fury upon them!”

Instead of the snort of laughter Sarge is expecting, Wash _sighs_ , tiredness the age of the universe seeping into the set of his shoulders as he closes his eyes and shakes his head slowly. “You couldn’t have known that for sure.”

Sarge is offended. “I know it as well as you know how inseparable me and my shotgun ar—er—were!”

“No, Sarge, I _don’t_ know.” Sarge can’t identify the emotion in Wash’s voice, but it sounds dangerously close to despair. “I _don’t know_ what would compel anyone to endanger the lives of an entire scouting party for a single shotgun.”

“I didn’t—”

Wash stares at Sarge, his face impassive. “You just admitted that keeping your shotgun was more important than promptly assisting those of us under attack.”

Sarge works his mouth several times, but no words come out. He hates to admit it, but Wash has him there. So he doesn’t. Instead, he fires back with “Caboose would do the exact same thing for Freckles! And you know it!”

“Your shotgun isn’t Freckles, and you’re not Caboose.” The cold anger returns with a vengeance, the earlier strangeness gone without a trace. “You are a Colonel now, Sarge, and that means you have a responsibility first and foremost to your _men_. _Not_ to a shotgun.”

“As if _you_ know how valuable that shotgun was!”

“Oh? Did it have an AI built in?”

“No.”

“Top-secret modifications?”

“No.”

“Incorporated alien technology?”

“No, but that’s not the point!”

“Then what _is?_ What made _that_ shotgun so much more important than anything else?”

Sarge stands there, grappling for the words to _explain_ , to make Washington _understand_. All he manages is, “It was _mine!_ ”

Sarge knows it’s the wrong thing to say, but he has nothing else.

Washington’s visage contorts into a scornful snarl. “Do you _listen_ to the things you say?”

“I know exactly what I say, otherwise I wouldn’t be saying it!”

Washington doesn’t give Sarge the chance to explain how he sometimes doesn’t say everything he means to. Instead, Washington lunges up into a standing position, his voice increasing in volume with every word he utters.

“So you’re telling me that the only reason that shotgun was so important, that it was worth more than the lives of your soldiers, _was because it was yours?!_ ”

“What other reason do I need?!” Sarge shouts back, anger welling up to push away the hurt and betrayal he doesn’t understand the reason for feeling.

Washington looks like he wants to punch Sarge; if the damn Blue weren’t so injured, he probably would, too. Instead, he drops back down onto the bed, grips the blankets tight in his fists, and growls, tone icier than the winds in Sidewinder, “Get out.”

Sarge scoffs. “You can’t kick me out of my own quarters!”

Wash glares at Sarge, his eyes narrowing in consideration before he carefully stands up with a barely-audible hiss of breath and stalks out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Sarge rips the door open, tossing it off to the side to yell “And good riddance!” after the other man.

Wash doesn’t so much as flinch. He keeps walking away as if Sarge doesn’t even exist, and that, for some reason, hurts more than anything else.


End file.
